All the green, around here.. is calling for colors on the next painting. At first it is just trees and trees and trees… if you look better or differently it is just woven forms. The palm leaves even more look like fabric threads.

GOING TO SURINAME AND TAKE WITH ME …
That was the first phrase that came up, as I thought about why I want to go Suriname and what I exactly want to do over there. What do I take from here to there and what do I expect to find? What of myself I take, because if I too take away, I am perhaps too little open to what I do not know and what new things I can encounter … I do not mean literally handy stuff in the suitcase, but more what of who I am as a person. In practice this will probably show that it does not work … it might so new and overwhelming that I lose sight of where I left: my Amsterdam Dutch life as an artist and web designer and my hometown Rotterdam. Whether it is so strange that I on the side stand still and do not come to enjoy the beautiful scenery, the climate in other words, stay a spectator. To consider this question one step forward with the plans and expectations I am about half in June 2012 departure to Botopasi, Suriname to have two months to stay in the artist in residence initiative ARTCEB.

I am a painter and take with me
I like making large paintings and use lots of paint and materials. Too bad materials: I concerns me not to so-called materials with professional quality. The old curtains may be painted, but a beautiful canvas is of course very nice. I use old cans of paint and beautiful little tubes together and for most parts good cheap paint. And big red face is quite red …
I paint small Ga? Or cloth stretching on tree branches or in Paramaribo quickly a lot of shopping …. Or see it and with nothing in his pocket to see what I can use … for me is that a good approach or is that false romance .. ? Or maybe there puts something else behind it?

There is only 1 computer and the one of my brother
I am also a digital artist. I work with new media and love of new useful! Gadgets. I go sit in the woods with my super mini digital notebookje and tiny digital drawings make ..? Portraits make a collage of digital photographs and comments? Are people who live there familiar with what can and what about the Internet? And power? Is it feasible .. quite apart from whether that is what’s there to want to do ..? There is little material (the computer of my brother) in this field is present, the power shuts off occasionally, I think internet is expensive ..

animal Phone doodle

Prints
I challenge myself as much as possible when I show who I am that does not automatically adapt to an environment that I did not know and that only because of how I expect it will affect my choice. I prefer to make up the resources that allow me the most ingenious way as close as possible stick to how I work here. I’m looking for a solar-powered battery charger and a portable printer. Together with a still camera that also can serve as a scanner, I see how far I go. So I will go with advanced stuff to the jungle. Maybe it looked disapprovingly? Maybe there are people who find it very intriguing.

going to Suriname and I am a bakra
There are 3 Surinamese families in my stairwell, but really I hardly know anything of Suriname. I am not only a Bakra as Surinamese people call white, but also ‘bakra’ wbt my knowledge of Suriname. There we go there I try to do something about it. The first book will soon be apparent, and perhaps the best book I’ve read is from Nina Jurna Location Paramaribo. In it, I read many stories about Suriname and Surinamese. Of course I know that the story of a man, but written from different perspectives and therefore for me very informative. What I finally did in her observation that Suriname is a small world, not only live less than half a million people, but also (NB 2007!) Is according to her a rather isolated world focused on themselves and Netherlands and beyond an outer leg in the neighboring South American countries. That sounds to me like a real village mentality in the ears. A village may also be a very positive name for an open safe social community. The current Netherlands in 2012, without any one to want to compare with the alleged village in Suriname, a large village to be less positive traits: anxiety, gossip and doom prevail in the public opinions and debates on the en television, which incidentally in Suriname seems much viewed. Of course there are exceptions like the program Books by Wim Brands! Near or in the street depends strongly from .. if you have the positive things are also frequently sees or hears the reverberation of the daily input Hilversum. Never would I go to Suriname from this mentality and even the slightest risk taking as village + village = 1 +1 = 2 to propagate.

going to Suriname and take with me
First, my own person. My curiosity, common sense and transverse sense. And I sometimes feel a bit sentimental. And the Dutch colonial past, a historical fact which I have long been aware of, but often do not know what to do. I also take along my alter ego: Mary Sluierhof. If emigrants daughter of NL for parents (5th generation) and raised in Pella, Iowa, U.S., she might also have a contribution, though I’m a bit wary of her bluntness.

Shared past, shared future
I live on a small walk from the slave memorial (Erwin de Vries) in Oosterpark in Amsterdam. It is a particularly beautiful and striking image, I always found that al Well it’s there I thought, but for me a confirmation of an uncomfortable feeling, where I, except the critical observation of the everyday life in the neighborhood and the annoyances sometimes about others’ behavior in the field of migration, refugees, immigrants, political correctness (in various ways), little can be anything with it in practice. What do I bring this history, this Dutch collective guilt when I go to Suriname. To what extent does it matter if I am visiting in the small village Botopasi, that arose directly out of all places. Of course I want where I can and where it needs to act upon and be aware of. How is it for people in the village when a small group of artists from Holland comes along. Just fun? Or are there negative feelings, hatred, jealousy, contempt … Is it possible to communicate even if people speak in Suriname almost all Dutch?

going to Suriname and take with me
Suriname to go for 9 weeks is a great adventure. I love adventure and am not (too much) to luxury made. Yet I feel I can not imagine how it will be and how I will feel. I do not think what I do and what I will use. I want to prepare my starting point, and unlike in the beginning I thought I just go out with digital media. If only for an extreme difference or maybe even an impossible way of working to use. That I may solve it. It gives my idea most clearly the distance between life in the city of Amsterdam and life in the interior of Suriname. This difference in view or what I feel within those two ends, that is my theme.

going to Suriname and take with me
Solar cell, laptop, telephone with notepad and drawing program, printer with battery, A4 paper, extension USB (multiple), storage devices, cameras, a whole bundle charging cables, a bag for all digital stuff, spare ink, cartridges and syringes and a resetter, needle and thread,